 Good afternoon. My name is Austin Davis. I'm the government affairs manager for the Lake Champlain Chamber, and this is live at 525 and today I am joined by two of my colleagues from the Lake Champlain Chamber, Amelia and Alex, and we're going to be talking about a chamber initiative, the Burlington Young Professionals Network, and some of the surveying they've done in the past couple years on Young Professionals and the challenges and positive notes of being a young professional in the greater Burlington area, and a few other things, but let's start with just a quick intro of who you are. Amelia, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at the chamber? Absolutely. Thank you. My name is Amelia Kayer. As Austin mentioned, we work together at the Lake Champlain Chamber. I started there towards the end of 2021 as program coordinator, served on the Steering Committee for Burlington Young Professionals and took over as manager of the program in January, and one of the first things that I did was co-author the report that we're going to talk about today with Alex here. And I'm Alex Bunton, the talent leadership manager for Lake Champlain Chamber, and I mainly run Leadership Champlain, which is one of our workforce development programs. And I also started the Chamber around 2021 and previously helped run BYP and put together the survey, and yeah, I'm excited to talk about some of the results that we got from it today. Awesome. Well, tell me a little bit more about the Burlington Young Professionals program network and what it entails and how it feeds into the broader chamber mission. Absolutely. I'll start with what Burlington Young Professionals is all about. I'll probably refer to it as BYP from here on out. That's how I say it. It just rolls off the tongue a little easier. But as Austin mentioned, it is a program of the Lake Champlain Chamber and the main goal is to to attract and retain young professional talent in Northwest Vermont. We aim to help Young Professionals build community because when it comes down to it, community is what is going to keep them here in the greater Burlington area. Networking, building connections, advocacy, professional development, education, those are all part of what helps YPs feel at home here in Vermont. Yeah, Alex, anything you want to add to that? Yeah, I mean, I'd probably just add the what would I add there? Just the connection piece. So I mean, yeah, as Amelia said, just trying to get folks to feel like they belong in an area. I lived in a variety of places abroad and the one thing that kept me there was the people typically. And so coming back home to Vermont here, it can be sometimes hard to crack the code on the Vermont social scene. Vermonters can be kind of hard to make friends with on occasion. And so our program is part of the just reason for folks new to the area or otherwise don't have a huge social group professionally or otherwise to make connections and find things to do. Awesome. So what are some of the things that folks typically do when they're trying to plug into the BIP group? You know, you've got a series of events. You've got one coming up at the end of the month, right? Yes. So we just had our first meetup of the year last week, actually, and we're really pleased with the number of YPs that came out. We had probably around 40 or so. We're excited to keep that momentum going next month. Actually, at the end of this month, we'll be heading to a Vermont Green Football Club match as a group, which will be fun. You can find details about that launching soon on our website. But yeah, so we typically have series of meetups, which are fun, casual, kind of more informal gathering opportunities for YPs. And then we're really hoping to add some more professional development and educational offerings to the mix this year as well. So there's a lot to look forward to. That's awesome. So the survey, this is one of the multiple times it's been done. And when did you start collecting responses? It opened in August of 2022 and ran until the end of October. Okay. So a little bit of a difficult time as we're kind of coming out of the pandemic, a lot of survey fatigue and whatnot, but still able to get a lot of good responses. What was the real just overall goal? What were you really looking for specifically in the survey? I think that as our workforce ages here in Vermont, the young professional demographic is going to be a really, is already a big part of our workforce and is going to continue to be. So attracting and retaining young professionals to the area is a really important piece of that. And we just wanted to better understand why YPs are thinking about leaving, why they're staying, how they perceive our community, what challenges they face, what they like about living here. And just kind of better understand how all of those perceptions about living here in the Greater Burlington area and Vermont in general drive their choices and actions. And it's so important. I'm tying into like the broader work of the chamber. I mean, something we're consistently trying to bring the alarm bell on in our advocacy is that right now we're approaching one in four remonters over the age of 65. And hopefully that's when folks are retiring. So there's a smaller and smaller pool of young people in the state who can, you know, do the jobs that we have around the state can keep generating tax revenues. The state can keep operating. So that's a concern that, you know, it's just front of mind for the chamber broadly. And this is a great way to take the temperature of how that community is doing. So what are some things that stood out to you? I would say the top three takeaways. And I'd love to explain a little bit about each of them. The number one kind of across the board is the cost that cost of living is definitely a concern for that demographic. It is the number one reason why they that age group is considering leaving the state. It's the number one factor that keeps them from moving to their desired town in the area, whether that's Burlington or Shelburne or Charlotte or otherwise. And it's definitely a concern, especially with a large percentage of YPs making at least 50k a year and actually 20% of respondents making above 100k a year, knowing that cost of living is still a challenge. I think that shows how serious it is for this group. I mean, particularly in housing, you know, I think UNH did a poll not long after I think its results came out in February. And it said that for Vermonters, not just the greater Burlington area, but for monitors as a whole, the largest issue was housing. And the second was affordability broadly, tracking with what you have. Obviously, those things are hand in glove when it comes to affordability. But it really is that they are showing across all income levels. It's hard to find housing. Is there anything good takeaways on housing? That was actually my next key takeaway was housing. It's probably no surprise. We have a really tight housing market here and a lack of affordable housing availability. Kind of the same story as cost of living. It's definitely a big contributor to why young people are considering leaving, why they cannot move to Burlington specifically or any of their other preferred towns. And more affordable housing was on the list of the top items that would attract and retain young professionals to the area. So that's definitely a priority or should be a priority if we want to keep YPs here, increasing the housing stock and just the affordability piece as well. The houses, single-family homes that are on the market, which there are very few of, many of them are out of reach financially for this age group as well. And as folks start thinking about starting families or needing more space, they're running into issues finding those single-family homes. I was on Zillow the other day with someone who was trying to relocate just looking and there's, in Manuski, where I live, one square mile, two listings in one of the most densely packed parts of the state. And just absolutely incredible to see only two listings there. One of them would require a considerable amount of work and the other wasn't much for your money. Right. Yeah, it was interesting in the survey that I think the majority, maybe not surprisingly, were from Burlington and the majority, if able to live anywhere, would live in Burlington, which I thought was kind of interesting that some folks as they get older would want to move to more rural areas. But it seemed like I think the general trend is that people want to stay in here in Burlington in a walkable area in a kind of more densely populated area, which is a... Yeah, were there any indications of what kind of housing folks are interested in or anything of that nature? Single-family homes, so it's definitely the number one. Yeah, which is why. It's surprising, I guess, because there's not a ton. There are single-family homes, but there's a lot of rentals in Burlington, so it's not as possible, I guess is what I'm getting out there. Yeah, I remember when we had kind of done some focus groups on an earlier version of this, we basically landed on YPs want Essex. They want a single-family home that's within a walkable downtown and, you know, with good pedestrian infrastructure, and yeah, it's certainly a difficult market for that, and there's not a lot of that out there. You know, I am a bit curious about where Essex fell on the rankings this year. It wasn't even on the top ten. Interesting. Well, 11% of respondents currently live in Essex, but that was not one of the top ten preferred towns, which is interesting. Yeah, Burlington, Shelburne, Richmond, South Burlington. So, I mean, that's getting to some of it where, yeah, Shelburne's a little bit more rural. You have to drive everywhere. Richmond has a little bit of a downtown. South Burlington, a bit more built up, and then after that, Charlottan, Cold Chester. Interesting. And I think anecdotally, the folks that were interested in living further out, it was because they wanted more space, more land, a yard. I think those may be some of the people that already had children or were thinking about having children soon. But yeah, the majority do want to be in more of an urban environment. Did you have a third takeaway, right? I did, yes. And I sidetracked. So, the third takeaway also goes hand in hand with the first two, and it's the lack of adequate wages or perceived wages. It was kind of the same story of people feel that they could find much better-paying jobs in other states, and that the wages of the employment opportunities here do not match the cost of living and the housing prices. And basically, there's a gap there. So, a temptation for folks to potentially go elsewhere, unfortunately. So, we covered a lot of negatives, I kind of feel like, with those three things. Were there any positives so we can not lose any viewers at this point in time? Well, give me something positive. Maybe we'll drift back to negative. Why people stay here? There actually are a lot of positives. I'm so glad you asked. We asked them for reasons for both, so that, yes. Yes, exactly. So, the biggest positives, as I'm sure all three of us can relate to, and hopefully some of the viewers, the community, we have great people here, access to outdoor activities, the mountains, the lake. A lot of people literally responded, lake. The natural beauty, the activities, just being on the shores of Lake Champlain is a big selling point. Our restaurants, people even throughout breweries. We all know these are high points. Yeah, more breweries per capita than anywhere in the country. It's funny, we did a previous one of these shows, and we had Jeff, our colleague, Jeff Lawson from Hello, Burlington, to talk about what the area has for assets. The lake, it was just something that kept coming up. They talked to outside groups and what not, and landed on how unique it is to have a lake with a sunset in the east coast. Just how that is psychologically something that we're all drawn to. Maybe you don't want to use the west coast of New England moniker that was once. I still think that's classic, I still quite like it. I kind of like it a lot myself too. There's certainly a lot to offer in terms of outdoor recreation and what not. Kind of back to the conversation with Jeff, we think about all of these communities that folks are saying they want to relocate to. It's very different communities from Burlington, but as a lake chamber, as the greater Burlington Young Professionals Network, if you look at this as a metro area, and a lot of places people would think when they're in Richmond that they're still in Burlington. Someone visits from out of state, so it is pretty incredible when you look at all of those assets right in our backyard. One good reminder that I think we hopefully emphasized in the survey was just about, yes, a lot of people highlighted some things they dislike about the area, but almost 70% would recommend living here to a friend. So for all the challenges there are still, that for me is a really important statistic in this survey. I think so too. I'm glad you mentioned that. Everywhere has challenges and we have our share, but if you would still recommend to your friend, yes, the good outweighs the bad, then that's a really... If you could find housing. If you could find housing. The pros outweigh the cons for sure. There's lots of jobs. I mean, that's probably why we have a lack of housing and folks will want to be here. That's true. It's a good place to live. It's a good problem to have in some ways. The housing market is tight, but there's also a bad problem of not being able to extend job offers in some cases. So what surprised you in the survey? What was kind of a wow moment? I can start. I sort of already mentioned it a little bit. But I think what surprised me was how high some of the respondents wages were and knowing that they're still facing these challenges. It just shows how great that YPs feel that these barriers are to staying here. Knowing that a large percentage or maybe not large, but a significant percentage are making 100K or more and they're still running into these challenges. That definitely spoke to me and definitely stood out. Was anything that surprised you? The safety concerns that didn't come up. So we took the same survey in 2019 or a similar edition of this. And I think we asked, was it the if you're planning a moving why? I can't remember if it was that or just general concerns or no. It was that question as well as our just the top three challenges. Yeah, the challenges and assets and last time safety did not come up. And so this time it did. So I think we have had our challenges in that area as well. And there's certainly work being done on that, but it was surprising for me. Yeah, I did look through that. And that was really surprising that it was not on the radar at all. I was more involved with kind of the 2019 survey. And you know, when you've brought that up, I don't remember any conversation in 2019 around safety. Really, it is. I don't think it came up at all. It wasn't included in the report from 2019. Yeah, and even there was a couple of focus groups that followed in 2019. And I don't remember it being a conversation. Our last episode of this was, if folks want to go back and watch was actually with Burlington Mayor Murrow Weinberger talking about public safety and a 16 point plan that he put forth on public safety. The Lake Chamber Board endorsed that plan and have been working with the mayor on some of it. A couple of them have been achieved actually. Actually just this week in the legislature. The legislature H230 passed the Senate, which is a mental health bill actually that deals with suicide prevention. But one of the aspects of it was safe storage of firearms, which is really important to the Lake Chamber Board. And I testified on that bill and the legislature. So we're happy to see that bill pass and we're making good headway on that 16 point plan that our board endorsed. Certainly surprising and shocking to see that, but at least we're reacting to it. And the reaction was in the works as the data was coming in. Definitely and while it is significant that it was brought up. I do feel like it's important to mention that it wasn't a large percentage of the respondents. I think it was like 13% listed as their top challenge. 13% listed it as their second challenge and then I think it was even lower as their third challenge. So hopefully with the work that you and other advocates are doing will not have so many concerns. Certainly. Just a quick one. The thing is yet to the bottom of the screen there. But yeah, just a reminder to go to the website and check the report in full if you get the chance just to dive into the details more if you can. Certainly. Who should folks reach out to if they're interested in BYP? Good to plug it in the middle of the show too. Yeah, absolutely. BYP at vermont spelled out dot org is our email address. And you can definitely find that at our website as well which is BYPVT dot org. Bottom of the screen there. So what else is big in this report? Anything else that kind of stick out to you? One thing was, you know, a question that kind of I saw that kind of mirrors like a typical survey question nationwide about readiness for an emergency. And the response rates were actually shockingly good for that. Usually that's something where we see that and it's troublesome. And folks, and I know you might have the exact numbers up, but normally when you look at that, it's wow, folks aren't ready for an emergency. But in this case, it seems like our young professionals are. That didn't end up making it in the report. So I just want to say if anyone's interested in that, definitely reach out to us because we do have the data on that. But I agree with you. I was surprised that so many people were as prepared as they were because I know I've also seen that national data before and it's shocking. It made me kind of wonder if that is given the timing of it, you know, if that has to do with just pent up demand from the pandemic. And if that had anything to do with just, you know, in previous surveys, student debt was a large concern for a lot of a lot of our respondents. And, you know, we're in a place where student debts paused right now for a lot of folks, you know, we're waiting on a Supreme Court decision to understand what happens with that pause later this summer. But, you know, it just brought more questions and answers, I think, for me when I looked at that. Yeah, important to remember that this is just a slice of the YPs in the region. And what did we have a total of, I think, 218 respondents? And we did also just mention that it is, we found also surprisingly that the amount they make was over between, what did we say, 50 to 80? 50 to 100 for the majority? Yeah, 50 to 75K was definitely the biggest segment. Right. But yeah, the majority was over 50K. So for that? So it could be slightly skewed or two. Could be right for those that make a bit more, 500 bucks might not be enough to break them. And I wonder if just the pandemic, we had so many things thrown at us that maybe some folks have started to be more prepared just because we had to, you know, adapt to so much over the past few years? Yeah, certainly. And I think, you know, you know, for folks who are interested in BYP and in the network specifically, there is kind of a desire for better financial literacy. That's one of the things that generally offers partnering with NefQ, new credit union BYPs done a lot of great seminars on personal finances. So there could be some survey bias there too. Folks who are in the network tend to take more of the surveys. That's true. And now that you mentioned that student loan payments are still paused, this average student loan payment was above $450 a month. I think it was like $470. So maybe that payment was what was putting some folks over the edge and now they are able to save up a little bit. Kind of going back to the $500 emergency thing too. It just makes you a little bit concerned for what happens, you know, when you see those payments restart. You know, that's childcare right there. That's what folks have to pay in a month for that, you know, or more in a lot of cases. Much more. You wonder why folks are struggling with affordability. You look at just all of these compiling costs and certainly has you concerned for what the fall could look like for YPs. True. Well, anything else that's a big or just kind of a larger overview takeaway from the survey? One other thing that I wanted to mention was just a role that employers might be able to play in helping to retain some of our YPs or attract new ones. Only like just under 50% of respondents feel that there's a path to move up at their current organization or feel supported to do so. So I think there's an opportunity there for employers to really look at their current employees, promote from within, really lay out that path that YPs could take. Whether they're in like a lower position and they can move up. I think feeling secure that you have opportunities to move up at your current employer would definitely keep you there longer. Yeah, it's something we've talked about, you know, in the context of just being such a small state that also has so many small employers. We pride ourselves on how many small employers we have, you know, with over 78% or so, you know, being under 25 employees. It's kind of incredible that creates that issue where sometimes in your workspace it feels like there's everybody and then there's the boss. And the path to being a manager doesn't seem as clear in that small of an organization. And so with our advocacy, a lot of the work we do is about trying to scale some of our small businesses in the state to be larger, whether it's that density of opportunity with all those mixed opportunities along the way. And, you know, the larger the employer is, the more it can scale, the more opportunities there are for advancement. And there's those middle management and different interim pieces. We had another show, Lauren Bass, from our LaunchVT program that is really about, you know, launching some of these smaller companies, but really giving them the tools to scale up and become those employers that can offer things like that. But it kind of feeds into the larger chamber mission too, because that's a lot of what we do is some of that. And Alex, you're actually the director of the Leadership Champlain program. So I don't know if you want to talk for a second about how that, you know, that kind of feeling of not being able to move up and not seeing a path move up, how Leadership Champlain plays into that. Fits into that. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a great opportunity for folks at, I mean, a lot of them do come from larger organizations already, for those that come into the program, from smaller ones. It's kind of a professional development opportunity where they can see different opportunities, but also develop themselves into hopefully future leaders at their own organizations. Well, in those smaller organizations, I was kind of saying, you know, it's quite the catapult from being, you know, an associate to a director. It's a really big launch to that point. And what do you do in that interim period to prepare? Leadership Champlain is a great thing to fill that void and that gap in the interim time. It's a continued professional development opportunity for sure, and great for folks to continue to develop those skills. And as someone in the current cohort, it's definitely exposed me to a lot of opportunities I wouldn't have typically had. I have interacted with so many leaders in our state and so many different industries that I probably never would have met otherwise. So, props to leadership. Yeah, Alex and I are obviously big fans. Alex, you were in a cohort with me before, you know, you ever ran the program. And that's really how we got you to join the Chamber of Programs. Yeah, I know. I mean, I like the program so much that I decided to come back and help run it. Yeah, so I mean, it's a fantastic program. As BYP is too, I mean, you know, you can kind of get a sense for just all of these Chamber programs, how they interact, how they kind of fill different voids and chasms, you know, that our employees in the community need and our employers in the community need so that we can, you know, best serve our region and make it this place where, I don't remember the exact percentage, but a large majority of people will tell you to move to, you know, and most people here, even when they talk about challenges, they, you know, they would refer to somebody else and they don't want to leave, you know. So, I think that's really fantastic. Yeah. Any parting thoughts you folks have or coming up on our time here? Yeah, just look forward to seeing anyone who's interested to come on out to a meetup or one of our future workshops. And thank you. Yeah, we've got a, last note, we've got a couple other workforce development programs and development beyond leadership champion to look out for those for anyone who has graduated from the program or is interested in other professional development opportunities. Awesome. Leaving us on a cliffhanger or something like that. I like it. So, people want to find out more about Burlington Professionals, BYPVT.org. Absolutely. Or BYP at Vermont.org is the email. We want to learn more about the Lake Chamber broadly and all these different programs we mentioned off today. You know, you can just go to LCCvermont.org or just email Vermont at Vermont.org. Well, Alex, Amelia, thank you so much for joining me on this lovely show that we get to do with our community access every so often and keep up the good work. Thanks for your time. Thanks for having us.